Re: not un-/anti-passive

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:13:21 -0400, Jeffrey Jones
<jsjonesmiami@...> wrote:
>[snip]
>> Jeffrey; what's an online reference to the "unpassive"? If there isn't one
>> online, can you tell us a bit about who uses it, and for what? and a hint
>> about how to find the reference?
>>[snip]
>
>I found both terms using google. The unpassive is supposed to be something
>like, "The mail went uncollected for three years." so English is a language that
>uses it. I didn't copy the references.
Thanks, Jeffrey.

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On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:24:19 -0400, Ph. D. <phil@...>
wrote:
>Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>> Josh; I'd never heard of the "circumstantial
>> voice" before! Does it resemble any applicative
>> "voices"?  How is it different?  Is there an online
>> reference to how Malagasay uses it?
>
>It's hard to find much info about Malagasy, but it
>seems to have three voices: active, passive, and
>circumstantial (which I personally refer to as the
>oblique). Something like this:
>
>Active: Sarah washed the clothes with the soap.
>
>Passive: The clothes were washed by Sarah with
>the soap.
>
>Circum: The soap washed-with by Sarah the clothes.
>
>This raises an oblique argument to a subject which
>is needed because in Malagasy the headword of a
>relative clause must be the subject in that clause.
>
>"I bought the soap, washed-with-which by Sarah
>the clothes."
Thanks, Ph. D.

>I believe Tagalog works like this, too, but it has a
>couple more "voices" like locative and benefactive,
>perhaps. This seems to be a better approach to
>analyzing "trigger" languages than "triggers."
I agree.  It looks like the difference is Tagalog more finely distinguishes what
the semantic role of the “new” subject is, and Malagasay’s “circumstantial
voice” only makes explicit that it was an oblique argument, or that it was
neither the agent nor the patient (or neither the actor nor the undergoer).

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On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:44:35 -0400, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
wrote:
>On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 2:24 PM, Ph. D. <phil@...> wrote:
>> This raises an oblique argument to a subject which
>> is needed because in Malagasy the headword of a
>> relative clause must be the subject in that clause.
>Continuing in this vein you could logically have as many voices as
>there are noun cases... interesting, if not necessarily efficient. :)
>--
>Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Applicative languages use different strategies.  Some have a different “voice”-
marking on the verb for every “case” the “promoted” oblique would have had in
the basic sentence; some group them into a few groups; some have only one,
letting you know it was an oblique, but leaving you to figure out by other
means which oblique it was.  (The difference between applicatives and
these “trigger voices” or “circumstantial voices” is just the destination to
which the oblique gets promoted; in applicativization it gets promoted to the
2nd MAP or 2nd GR (primary object or direct object), while in “circumstantial
voice” or “trigger voice” it gets promoted to the 1st (and only, I think),
namely, the subject.)

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On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:49:30 -0400, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...> wrote:
>[snip]
>Basque, IIRC, has a construction in intimate speech where you insert a 2nd
>or 3d pers. dative marker into the auxiliary (in addition to subject and
>object), which indicates that somehow the statement is of interest to, or
>concerns, that person, or even simply that speaker somehow wants to involve
>the other in the statement. The translations offered made it rather
>difficult to see exactly what was going on :-(  And I forget what the
>grammar book called it. "Dative of interest? Dative of reference?" or some
>such.
That’s usually called “the ethical dative”, from the Greek word for “character”.
It’s not really related to the circumstantial voice.
The examples of “ethical datives” I found most easily were German, and were
first-person-singular.


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On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:44:07 +0300, JR <fuscian@...> wrote:
>[snip]
>In the circumstantial voice (to answer Eldin here as well) an oblique
>argument is promoted to subject. That's the core of it.
So it’s like the voices in trigger languages, but with only one voice that
promotes an oblique to subject.
In applicative languages, one of the reasons to promote an oblique argument
to direct (or primary) object, is so that passivization can be applied to the
result, and thus the oblique argument can wind up as subject; in some of
these languages, passivization can only “move” the direct or primary object to
the subject, but one can passivize a sentence which is “already” applicative.

>What I really wanted to see when I asked for "normal" versions of those
sentences was
>how experiencers were encoded in Naisek outside of this construction. You
left them
>out altogether, but unless they're being elided here, this shows just as well
that they are
>oblique, i.e., not core arguments required by the verb.
I don’t want to quibble nor derail this discussion, but I think I may be a bit
confused about what you mean.  I am under the impression that “argument”
means “required by the verb”, and that “core” means “occupies a grammatical
relation (or morphosyntactically-licensed argument position).  All core
participants are arguments, and all adjuncts (non-arguments) are oblique (non-
core), but there are oblique arguments.

In a language with only 2 GRs (subject and (only) object), and with no clause
allowed more than one of any GR, a ditransitive clause would have to have one
of its arguments be oblique.  If that’s the recipient, then recipients are oblique
arguments; they aren’t objects, because “object” means “any core argument
other than the subject”.

But the main point – that in Naisek experiencers (and, presumably, recipients)
appear to be coded as oblique arguments rather than as core arguments – I do
understand.

>The fact that these experiencers, when promoted to subject, appear with
>dative case, I would not attribute to the operation in question at all.
>According to your web page, dative case is used for experiencer-subjects (at
>least sometimes?) even in active voice, so I'd think this is just another
>application of the same principle of case assignment.
To me, you look right.  (Is that “to me” an ethical dative?)

>Of course your construction here is different from Malagasy not only in the
>case of the new subject, but in the types of oblique arguments that can be
>promoted in the first place. In Malagasy, it can be used for instruments,
>times, locations, beneficiaries, manners - perhaps any oblique, but I don't
>really know. In Naisek it's limited to experiencers. But the operation
>itself seems the same. You would just have to specify its range - you could
>even call it a Experiencer-Circumstantial voice if you want.
If your analysis is correct, he could also borrow whatever term grammarians of
Tagalog use to describe the voice that has this meaning.

>Finally - instead of saying that the subject in the original structure must
>be a patient, would it be better to say simply that the *event* described
>must be some perceivable/experienceable state? Perhaps it amounts to the
>same thing most of the time, but from what I've seen, I wonder if this isn't
>the true determining factor. I'm especially troubled by (1), where there is
>no subject at all. Even if there could be one in another sentence with the
>same verb, there isn't one here (I assume the behavior is like that of the
>English 'rain', which can take a patient, but usually doesn't). Even aside
>from that though, it makes more sense to me that the possibility/behavior of
>an experiencer of an event would be dependent on some characteristic of the
>event as a whole, rather than the semantic role of any one argument.
>
>What do you think?
I am not yet able to follow this discussion well enough to answer; it requires
sharp and fine distinctions and reasoning that I may be able to carry through
later, but not at the moment.  But I will say that ANAICT your points are
worth thinking about.

>Eldin, in applicatives, an non-direct object, or oblique argument is
>promoted to direct object, as I understand. I don't see that ocurring here
>though. Not really sure about good web resources for the circumstantial -
>there's a little here, a little there. There's a page on wikipedia, but I
>think there's a mistake in it.
I haven’t yet consulted Wikipedia’s page.

In 3-GR (or 3-MAP) languages, if an oblique argument is promoted to the 3rd
GR (“indirect object” in many languages), this is often called “dative
applicative”.  If the resulting clause then undergoes “dative movement”, that
originally-oblique argument might wind up in the 2nd  GR (primary object or
direct object).

In 2-GR (or 2-MAP) languages, if an oblique argument is promoted to the 2nd
GR (primary object or direct object), this is called “applicative”.  If the
resulting clause then undergoes passivization, that originally-oblique argument
might wind up in the 1st GR (subject).

Tagalog and (some? Many? Most? All?) other “trigger” languages appear to
have only one GR or MAP; the subject.  They don’t have objects; all
arguments other than the subject are oblique arguments.  A voice that
promotes an oblique argument has to promote it directly to subject.

>(ObAFMC) Khafos has a circumstantial voice which is pretty close to
>Malagasy's, though it's used for indirect objects as well as any other
>oblique arguments. AFAIK, IOs are in Malagasy are promoted with the normal
>passive voice, just like DOs.
>
>Josh
Well, obviously, I don’t know.  I’m not sure whether Malagasay actually has
indirect objects.  Or objects at all.  Maybe it’s a 2-GR language, and some
clauses we’d think of as ditransitive, are actually dechticaetiative; the (only,
hence primary) object is the recipient, and the theme is an oblique argument.
Or maybe it’s a 1-GR language, and both the theme and the recipient are
oblique arguments, and to promote either to subject requires the same marking
on the verb, the one you’ve called “passive voice”.  Or maybe it’s a 3-GR
language.

Have you considered all of those?  What do your sources tell you that would
support or contradict each possibility? Or is the most-preferable analysis one I
omitted?

ObYourConlang: Is Khafos in the same genetic grouping as Malagasay and
Tagalog?

--------
eldin

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